


Bake it till you make it

by Fatale (femme)



Category: White Collar
Genre: Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-19
Updated: 2013-03-19
Packaged: 2017-12-05 20:46:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/727754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/femme/pseuds/Fatale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neal bakes a cake. Or tries to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bake it till you make it

Fic: Bake it till you make it  
Gen: Neal pov, Mozzie, June, Elizabeth, Peter  
Rating: PG  
WC 1360  
Summary: Neal bakes a cake. Or tries to.  
A/N: Consider this an apology for the angst of that last fic. I know it was a doozy. Also, pardon the absolutely terrible pun for the title. GOD.

ALSO Also, let's ignore the part where I get Basic Facts Wrong. I am not going to go into it more than that because it'll mess up the ending. Consider this AU if it makes your brain scream.

 

 

 

 

It was a flight of fancy, a stray idea that led him down this dark, terrible path.

Neal technically owned a bakery, had eaten its wares a few times, and had the vague notion that he should probably know the basics of making a cake.

After surfing online - cooks.com, all recipes.com, bunch of mommy blogs- he decided on a birthday cake. Easy vanilla cake with butter cream frosting, two layers because nothing was worth doing if it wasn’t a little challenging. He planned it with the same detail he would have given to a con, which made him a little uncomfortable if he thought about it too long.

He wrote out all the ingredients he’d need on a stray sheet of paper torn from his sketchbook, cobbled together the instructions, made adjustments to times and ingredients to suit his tastes. Neal was a planner at heart: he liked to have backup plans, backups for his backups, because he was uncomfortably familiar with human fallacy, but this was straightforward and he only had to depend on himself and an oven.

He was a decent cook; he’d dated a top-tier French chef and even _idiots_ could make a cake.

It was the kind of plain, simple hubris that had been his downfall plenty of times before. When would he _learn_?

 

**Cake #1:**

There were no words for the sheer awfulness he had just put into his mouth.

His first cake even looked terrible. It was lopsided, the top layer teetered alarmingly whenever he crossed the room and it tasted like burned vanilla (which Neal had been previously unaware could even be burned) and salt, which he was pretty sure he only used a _pinch of_ , and how much was a pinch anyway.

He absently took another bite. Oh _god_ , no no no.

 

**Cake #2:**

The cake was hard enough that it took a serrated knife and most of Neal’s upper body weight leaning on the handle to cut a slice.

He threw it away without tasting it and ignored the heavy, unyielding thud it made when it hit the bottom of the trashcan.

 

*

 

It was a little humiliating to be beaten by a cake, but Neal never had trouble admitting when he was in over his head. All right, he was terrible at admitting it, but he refused to be beaten by what was essentially just a pastry with a big ego.

He called Mozzie because Mozzie could blow glass, forge semi-precious stones, all while fluently speaking eight languages, two of which were dead.

Less than 24 hours later, Mozzie brought him a cake, beautifully decorated with fondant and edible pearls. Moz was a fixer, he liked puzzles and riddles and problems and loved to have the all the answers. He saw no reason for Neal to work harder than he had to.

They each ate a slice and it tasted like an apology, for the Nazi treasure debacle, for burning his art, for all of the small dishonesties and half-truths that had ever existed between them.

Also, it tasted kind of bad, which was how Neal found out fondant was nasty.

 

**Cake #3**

We’re not even going to talk about that one, okay?

 

**Cake #4**

June came by in her furs, sipping Earl Grey out of delicate porcelain. They played cards while the cake baked in the oven, filling the apartment with the warm smell of vanilla and sugar.

Neal thought about asking June for baking tips, but seriously doubted she’d ever stepped a kitten heel in the kitchen. At a time when most women spent half of their day cooking, June was busy learning how to be a goddamn _card shark_.

They both cheated shamelessly and June won two hands to Neal’s one.

 

*

 

The oven timer beeped. Neal slid on the silicon gloves and pulled the pans out. They were lightly browned on the top, slightly puffed up, and smelled perfect.

After he was sure the cakes had cooled, Neal held his breath as he unlatched the springform pans and pulled the sides away from the cakes. He gingerly poked the tops and felt them give slightly before springing back.

It was ridiculous, he thought, to be so invested in the outcome of a cake, but Neal had never really done anything badly and the shock of his previous failures still stung.

After a couple of hours, once he was sure the cakes wouldn't sink or fall apart or any of the other terrible things they had done before, Neal took out a serrated knife and carefully sliced a thin layer off the top from each cake, leaving them perfectly level. He went around the edges with the knife, the sides nearly peeling off.

He gathered the ingredients for the icing and followed them exactly until he had a smooth whipped buttercream, and dipped a finger in to taste it. He took a spatula and spread the icing over one cake and gingerly placed one on top of the other.

His nerves tingled and he let his muscles take over, as he had so often before, his fingers dexterous and steady, betraying none of the inner nervousness he felt. It was a skill he'd mastered a long time ago out of necessity, and it was ironic that it served him so well now. Neal honestly couldn't imagine anything more important to him now than this cake, his world narrowed to timers and butter and flour.

When he was done, he stood back and surveyed his work. It was damn near perfect and Neal felt a wave of deep and eternal humiliation by the tears prickling at the back of his eyes. If he actually cried over a cake, he might not ever be able to look at himself in a mirror _ever again_.

He took a shaky breath and stepped back, unwilling to breathe too hard lest he upset the cake, and sat down at his table.

He was - what now?

Neal couldn’t eat an entire cake by himself, nor did he particularly want to. He didn't even like cake, really.

It was March 21st, his birthday and he’d never had a birthday cake before. WITSEC changed his birth date when they changed his identity, but his mom never remembered his fake birthday and Ellen had thought it unwise to celebrate his real birthday, so the former passed with little fanfare because Neal hated, _hated_ the lie of it and the latter passed mostly unacknowledged.

This was way too pathetic. He was going to throw the cake away. Neal hated this kind of morose self-indulgence and the idea of eating a birthday cake by himself that he made for himself was _too sad for words_.

A knock on his door interrupted him.

 

*

 

As soon as he opened the door, Elizabeth bustled in, arms filled with brightly colored packages, followed closely by Peter, June and Mozzie.

“Heard you made a cake,” she said with a wide smile.

Neal shot a quick, betrayed glare to Mozzie, who shrugged in response.

Neal rubbed the back of his neck, feeling acutely embarrassed, and didn’t respond. She could clearly see the cake on the counter - he had done everything but stick 35 candles on it.

Elizabeth regarded him silently for a moment, nose scrunched up and eyes unreadable. She looked almost sad, then she sighed softly, affectionately. “Oh, Neal, how could you think we’d forget?” she asked. “Happy Birthday.”

 

*

 

They brought him little paper hats and loaded the top of his cake with small candles that melted too quickly and made a mess. He was surrounded by Peter and El to his left, holding hands and smiling indulgently; to his other side stood June and Moz.

“Make a wish,” Elizabeth said.

“Nothing illegal,” Peter joked.

“Big Brother can’t police wishes,” Mozzie said with a small snort, sounding apprehensive all the same. Neal thought he heard Mozzie mutter something about _Inception_.

Neal closed his eyes, let their voices become a distant and pleasant swirl around him, wrapping him in warmth as the candles flickered behind his eyelids, and thought carefully about what he’d wish for. His mind drew up curiously blank.

He smiled and blew the candles out.

 

 

The end.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Early Birthday, Neal Caffrey ♥


End file.
